Borland C++ compiler

Borland is one company that create compilers. In the past, they released a
version of C++ called Turbo C++ that was popular for programming in the DOS
enironment, and you may find some books still come with that compiler.

Embarcadero's webpage has information on their
compilers, as well as some free downloads of their earlier compilers (though
you probably don't want to use those as they are out of date). They are now
giving away a new version of their compiler, Borland C++ 5.5 for
free download. It does require you to become a member of the borland
community before downloading the file, but this registration takes place
immediately.

Note that this compiler is a command-line tool: you will need to feel
comfortable running it from the DOS prompt, or set up an "IDE" (integrated
developer's environment).

Setting up Your Compiler

Once you've downloaded the Borland compiler, you can take take the default
installation options, including the default directory, "c:\Borland\BCC55".
Once you've done that, follow the instructions below to get the compiler
ready to use.

First, we need to tell the compiler where to find the include files and
supporting libraries. To do this, open up notepad (or any other text editor)
and paste the following two lines into a blank file:

-I"c:\Borland\Bcc55\include"
-L"c:\Borland\Bcc55\lib"

Save this file in notepad as "c:\borland\bcc55\bin\bcc32.cfg". To do this,
just go to "Save As" under the "File" menu, then type the entire file name, in
quotes, into notepad. You need to include the quotes to keep it from adding a
.txt extension.

Now paste the following line into a new blank text file:

-L"c:\Borland\Bcc55\lib"

Save this new file as "c:\borland\bcc55\bin\ilink32.cfg"

Great, now you're ready to start writing and compiling programs.

Compiling and Testing your Installation

Since Borland C++ 5.5 is a command-line tool, you will need to run it from the
command line. Before trying to compile a program, you'll need to actually
write some code to test the compiler. You can do this in notepad, or download
a better text editor. At any rate, you'll want
to save the file in the "c:\borland\bcc55\bin" directory. If you save it in
notepad, be sure to enclose the name in quotes to make it a ".cpp" file
instead of a ".txt" file.

Here's a simple program you can copy into notepad and save as
"c:\borland\bcc55\bin\test.cpp" to test your compiler's installation: